My Parents Never Took Me To Gillian's Wonderland Pier, But I Am Not Blaming Them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                             Frankly, my dears, I am not sure they knew about it.  I certainly did not know of it till recently, when it was announced that this iconic amusement park, operating since 1929, will be closing this fall.

                           Another nail in the coffin of New Jersey's great theme parks, like Story Land, near Freehold, the destruction of amusements at Asbury Park, and who knows what else?  Thank God for the Gingerbread Castle in Hamburg, NJ, and the Land Of Make Believe in Hope, NJ.

                          The commercial trash replacing them, like the Six Flags franchise, can never replace the creative beauty that these single-handed originals had.  When I read "Broken Angels," by Richard Montanari, whose prime setting was an abandoned theme park called Story Book River, I could not help wondering if the author had drawn on the great firsthand theme parks of the Garden State, and elsewhere.

                            I would love to get to Gillian's before it closes.  Alas, I fear I shall not.

                            So, bye bye, baby boomers, to another icon of our generation--the non-franchised theme park.

                            Creativity is being destroyed in favor of mass consumption!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!